Social media are at the heart of this campaign, with the goal of reaching girls around the globe.

The key day of the campaign will take place on the International Day of the Girl, the 11th of October 2017, in cooperation with media partners and a social media campaign.

On this day, female Parliamentarians from around the world will host a group of girls in order to give them a personal introduction to politics for a “day in the life of” experience.

Our main Girl2Leader event will take place in the European Parliament in Brussels, Belgium, on the 11th of October. A group of 50 adolescent girls will have the opportunity to hear via personal stories how each Member of European Parliament got involved in politics and to ask them face-to-face questions (please find the full list of participating MEPs on our Girl2Leader website). After this, the girls will receive a tour around the European Parliament and attend a Committee meeting. Additionally, a YouTube creator will talk with them about the importance of female leadership in politics. The day will finish at the Google offices in Brussels, where they will participate in the workshop “IamRemarkable”, which aims at helping girls recognise their own achievements and not to shy away from expressing themselves publicly.

Girl2Leader’s main event in Malta will take place on 11 October 2017 with the President of Malta, H. E. Marie Louise Coleiro-Preca, who will receive a delegation of adolescent girls from Malta.

Girl2Leader will also host two side events: one will take place on 2 October in Malta during the freshmen’s week and the other one will take place on 30 November in Iceland, as a side session of the WPL Annual Global Summit. A group of Icelandic girls will work together on several activities.

Girl2Leader takes place under the patronage of the President of Malta, H.E. Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca. The Equality Fund of Iceland supports the campaign financially.

Girl2Leader wants to empower young girls (age 14-17) to get active in politics. Why? Still today, even with women being half of the population, political decisions are mostly made by men – only 22% of national parliamentarians are women. To initiate change, we should start early: with young girls. For most of them, working in politics may not be something that they consider doing in their lives. In order to address this, Girl2Leader seeks to rise awareness about how women can and should play an important role in the political decision-making process and in the public sphere.